Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Turns out, it’s me.

Slowly.

Upon the acquisition of an iPod touch (exchanged for a very small portion of the contents of my garage), it occurred to me that I have a number of relatively recent movie purchases that came with a free digital copy. These have not been all that useful to me, since I have a DVD player (or rather, several) hooked up at my computer workstation.

My original thought was to archive my considerable dvd collection onto one of the external hard drives we have, and then use L’s old thinkpad as a media computer in the front room, and our laptop/netbook/mobile phones for portable viewing.

Windows disagreed. In fact, Microsoft DRM locked down the digital copies so hard that they are almost unviewable on the main computer where they were first installed, and where I would never really care to watch them.

But this here small piece of technology has changed everything. Almost all of the copies have an iTunes variant, and once formatted said copy attaches to the Account, not the user. Looking around the house, we have exactly five computers on which iTunes is installed. Which means that through the magic of portability, lots and lots of screens.

And hypothetically speaking, software exists on the internets to take that DVD library and make it available for very small viewing devices.

Which brings me to what I consider one of the finest movies of last year. Zach Snyder’s adaptation of THE WATCHMEN. I synced it over last night, and started watching it this morning. I’m watching it now. It is 10:23 PM, and stolen minutes here and there have allowed me to see the movie on my schedule, “reading” it almost as individual issues.

It does not suffer for the separation. In fact, I think it is enhanced.

The quality of playback is simply amazing. Listening through tiny headphones and through the magic of the inverse square law, I’m getting sound on par with the complicated and expensive system in the other room. Picture is crisp and clear, and should be on every one of the other lcd screens as well.

This non-purchase has changed my world. The only drawback to this 1st gen touch is the lack of bluetooth, but sooner or later I’ll be able to address that with an upgrade.

Something has to sell, somewhere. Or perhaps I’ll get one of them job thingies. I’m nearly out of debt, and almost a productive member of society.

Almost. And I think I’ve earned it.

Until then, I’ll be here in the Temple of Technology, communing with my 8Gb oracle and the rest of this bottle of wine.